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Income and wealth inequality sociology
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Assignment # 3: Video “Wealth Distribution” in U.S.
Does it make you think twice about wealth distribution in the U.S?
After watching the video about the wealth inequality across the United State, it does make me wonder how this is possible and why we weren’t aware of this. You would think that with all the access to the media (internet, television, radio, magazines and newspapers) we have today, we would be more aware on how does Americans live their everyday lives.
Three things I learned:
• American think the wealth distribution is more equitable than what really is. In reality 80% of the population has 7% of the national income, while 1% of the top 20% has 40% of the national income.
• 1% of the Americans has 40% of the nation income.
The U.S. has the highest income gap between the wealthiest and poorest in the industrial world, which is approximately 12 to 1. In 2004, the affluent experienced a wage increase by 12%, whereas the 99% of average income makers saw an increase of 1%.
3. What are the effects of this wealth inequality in the US and what causes it, as well as some possible solutions and their ramifications, will all be discussed and answered below. There has always been a wealth gap between the richest and poorest in society. However, in the past decade, the wealth gap between the richest and poorest citizens in the US has been growing rapidly. In the 70s and 80s, the wealth and income growth rate for both poor and rich people were similar, however, between the years 2009 and 2012 the top 1% income increased 31% while for the bottom 20%, their income actually dropped and for the vast majority of Americans, the average yearly income only increased by 0.4% [4].
With each class comes a certain level in financial standing, the lower class having the lowest income and the upper class having the highest income. According to Mantsios’ “Class in America” the wealthiest one percent of the American population hold thirty-four percent of the total national wealth and while this is going on nearly thirty-seven million Americans across the nation live in unrelenting poverty (Mantsios 284-6). There is a clear difference in the way that these two groups of people live, one is extreme poverty and the other extremely
In "Class in America", Gregory Mantsios says that "when politicians and social commentators draw attention to the plight of the poor, they do so in a manner that obscures the class structure and denies any sense of exploitation." Based off our readings, class discussion and films, income inequality is known to be erased or ignore. Our society frowns upon the expression of income in our daily conversations, as it could be seen braggy or a complaint depending on your status of income. Because it's frowned upon to talk about, the topic of income inequality becomes erased or ignored. In addition, income inequality in America's class structure can affect people's ability to reach their American Dream.
The distribution of wealth by country is an amazing thing to look at (see table 3). The United States comes clearly on top with 41.6% of the wealth across the world, with the next closest being China at 10%. This shows that there is plenty of wealth to go around in the United States; we just don’t equally distribute it. The Gini Coefficient is the best way the world economy can represent the income distribution of a nation’s citizens. The United States ranks well below any other first world country (See table 2) This is an embarrassment to our country. We are a wealthy and successful country, yet we have a bigger gap between the wealthy and poor than any other country that compares to
The highest earning fifth of U.S. families earned 59.1% of all income, while the richest earned 88.9% of all wealth. A big gap between the rich and poor is often associated with low social mobility, which contradicts the American ideal of equal opportunity. Levels of income inequality are higher than they have been in almost a century, the top one percent has a share of the national income of over 20 percent (Wilhelm). There are a variety of factors that influence income inequality, a few of which will be discussed in this paper. Rising income inequality is caused by differences in life expectancy, rapidly increases in the incomes of the top 5 percent, social trends, and shifts in the global economy.
There are many people that think there is economic and wealth equality in the United States , but with all the statistics I provided it can be clearly seen that inequality in America is a serious issue , and it's getting worse with every year. I do believe that there should be some income inequality because that drives people to succeed , but I also believe that too much inequality limits a lot of people from achieving financial success.
Between the end of World War II and the late 1970s, income inequality in the U.S. was reduced; but since 1970s, the situation with wealth distribution has changed. Data from tax returns in 1976 show that the top 1 percent of households received 8.9 percent of all pre-tax income. In 2008, the top 1 percent’s share had more than doubled to 21.0 percent.
Income inequality in the United States, as of 2007, has reached levels not seen since 1928. In 1928, the top one percent received nearly 24% of all income within the United States (Volscho & Kelly, 2012). This percentage fell to nearly nine percent in 1975, but has risen to 23.5% as of 2007 (Volscho & Kelly, 2012). Meanwhile, in 2007 (see
The 90% of the richest Americans went from making a median of $85,800 in 1967 to $138,900, making 62% increases. Clearly illustrating a phrase that "The richest become richer, the poorest become even poorer." This affecting my life’s opinion because I need to be able to realize this, and wake up to the reality of the world which can be viewed as a harsh lesson but a valuable one.
Inside of this video, this guy really targets an issue nobody has really been presented. He shows charts that talk about how we Americans think our wealth is distributed. We think distribution is doing alright. Americans think that the bottom 40% is getting a bit of money. They also believe that the middle class is doing reasonably well. Unfortunately, that is not the case. In the video, he breaks it down a little bit getter. He shows a graph that shows how money is actually being distributed. The poorest of poor don 't even register on the poverty line. The middle class is barely making it. And then there is this huge difference between "the rich" and the poor. It is proven that the 1% of America has 40% of the entire nation 's wealth ("Wealth Inequality in America."). The bottom 80% of America only share 7% of the nation 's wealth among themselves. The top 1% has 50% of the stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. The bottom 50% of Americans only own 0.5% ("Wealth Inequality in America."). The poor is not just getting by but they are scraping and fighting to get by. Now that it is clear that there is a lot of poor people in America, it is important to figure out how to fix
Smith, Noah. “How to Fix America's Wealth Inequality: Teach Americans to Be Cheap.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Pub., 12 March 2013. Web. 06 April 2014. .
The difference between social classes is humongous. According to Nick Fitz’s article “Economic Inequality: It’s worse than you think”, the top 20% of the American households own 84% of the American wealth. Even more stunning, the Walton family alone owns more wealth than 42% of the average American households combined! Furthermore, corporations are faring no better, however. In order to have a more stable economy, the CEO-to-worker-pay-ratio should be 7-1, but truth to be told, it is an excessive amount of 354-1 (Fitz)! One might expect that the United States would be more equal by now, but sadly, this is not true. Comparing the before mentioned ratio to the Civil War, one may notice the difference quite easily. The ratio back at the Civil War was at 20-1, still not at the ideal ratio, but by far better than the current ratio (The
... provides great points on inequality of wealth as well as inequality of educatin and opportunities. He speaks about the overlearned beliefs of many Americans that anyone who wants more taxes or seeks a better economic system is against America. Wolff also explains how many people choose to believe they are living in the greatest nation because of denial, when he says, “Often people cling all the harder to an idea, precise;y because the reality is so different,“ and also when he says,“The myth of equal opportunity is more attractive, more beautiful, the more they know it’s slipping away.“ All of these men have made great points on the effects, causes, and simple solutions to inequality. The biggest, and simplest quote of these videos in my personal opinion is from Wolff,“If you want equality of opportunity, you’re gonna have to create equality of income and wealth.“
... Although it may not seem fair that there are rich people blowing money on impractical and meaningless things while living in poverty, it’s a reality that the United States has experienced for centuries. Works Cited Desilver, Drew. A. “U. S. Income Inequality, On The Rise.” Pew Research Center.